


Alluvion

by FullOnLarrie



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 07:44:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14539965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullOnLarrie/pseuds/FullOnLarrie
Summary: al·lu·vi·on /əˈlo͞ovēən/ 1 : the wash or flow of water against a shore. 2 : flood, inundation. 3: the action of the sea or a river in forming new land by deposition.





	Alluvion

**Author's Note:**

> **This fic deals with grief over the loss of a pregnancy. Please be aware of that before reading.**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **If you’d like to translate any of my fics, feel free, but please post the translation on ao3, and send me a link so that I can include it in the author’s notes.**
> 
>  
> 
> **Please do not post this fic or any of my other fics on any other websites.**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> I actually wrote about 99% of this about 18 months ago and found it while going through my abandoned works.
> 
> Thank you to [Nic](http://louandhazaf.tumblr.com) for betaing it way back then and to [phdmama](http://phd-mama.tumblr.com) for doing the same today.

It’s been more than a year since they began the whole… process, but just short of three months of meditation practice that was suggested by their lawyer of all people. Later, when Harry finally sought out a therapist, she agreed that it sounded like it was worth trying. 

Seventy-eight days of rising before he wants to, of walking, or driving if he’s feeling lazy or if it’s raining, to the beach access. Sixty-seven mornings drifting in the ocean while salt water burns his nose and dries his mouth and washes away the tears that pool in the corners of his eyes. Eleven mornings sitting behind the wheel of his car with the rain and wind battering the windows, watching dark clouds roll across the ocean as lightning strikes the water, trying to think of nothing, but incapable of thinking of anything other than the desperate aching that won’t go away. 

Buoyed by the salt water, he floats on his back, drifting slightly with the waves as they roll underneath him towards the shore. With his legs stretched as far as they can go and his arms spread wide to help balance his body, Harry tries to concentrate on not concentrating. He’s been working on this meditating thing for a few months, but today is the first time he feels somewhat successful.

It’s strange, really, that on a day that the sorrow is more prominent, he’s more capable of clearing his mind or “cultivating awareness” as his yoga instructor calls it, but maybe it’s not so odd after all. The pang, the echoing emptiness inside him, is more acute this morning and he finds that he’s unable to think of anything other than the grief and sadness, but perhaps that’s the point. He doesn’t fight it, imagining it as a rip current that would only exhaust him if he swam against it, and lets it take him with it until it deposits him far out past the breakers.

Inhaling deeply, he holds the air in lungs for few seconds before exhaling, blowing his breath completely out, then he uses his arms to propel his body underwater where he opens his eyes. It stings, but he expects it. It hurts every time, but it’s an excuse for the tears, for the redness and irritation to remain in his eyes for a little longer. When his lungs burn and he can’t physically force himself to stay under any longer, he bobs up to the surface, gulping the salt air, blinking repeatedly until he can see the shore and he begins the slow walk through the waist deep water, the breaking waves, and the shallows, back to the dry sand and real life.

One hour per day is what he’s silently allowed himself with his internal bargaining. An hour in the morning, before the day truly begins, from the time his alarm goes off until he walks through the front door of their home, one hour to feel it, but only that single hour because if he doesn’t limit it, he'll drown in it. It will seep out and bleed into every second of every minute of his day, and he can’t let that happen. It’s already threatened to destroy him, them, everything. 

Early on, he had to shut it down completely. After a week of wading through the grief and the guilt, forcing it aside while he tried to remain strong, to be the support that he thought he had to be, the crushing devastation overwhelmed him and had him, quite literally, on his knees. In the shower, sobs wrenched his gut until he physically couldn’t cry anymore and started vomiting instead. 

It was then that Louis found him, his naked body half in and half out of the bathtub, barely holding onto the toilet bowl, long hair stringy and hanging down into the mess, as his body convulsed until his stomach was empty. Even then, he continued to retch and dry heave while Louis pulled his hair off his face and rubbed his back and told him that everything would be alright, but when Harry glanced up, the distress and concern on Louis’ face were the furthest thing from alright. After that, he cut it off. Better to feel nothing at all than to feel like that and see the worry and fear he put on his husband’s face.

He finds his sandals where he kicked them off in the dunes, slips them on and walks home. Half of a mile takes him ten minutes, he paces it slowly on purpose so that when he walks in the door his face is dry, his eyes are mostly clear, and, for all appearances, he seems fine. Louis is in the kitchen grinding coffee beans and obviously waiting for Harry to return from the beach, trying to cover his concern for Harry’s mental well-being by brewing coffee. 

He doesn’t know why the sympathy bothers him so much, maybe because they were both there the whole time. They started this together, experienced the same apprehension when they asked Harry’s sister Gemma to be their surrogate, rode the wave of enthusiasm and excitement when she agreed immediately, without hesitation, telling them that it would be the greatest gift she could give them. Her own daughters were old enough to eventually be included and understand the situation, but they agreed to wait to tell anyone. 

An anonymous donor egg and Louis’ sperm and, according to the doctors, they had an embryo growing inside Harry’s sister’s uterus. It was like magic. The first ultrasound that showed them the tiny bundle of cells had all three of them in tears; the technician left them alone in the exam room, Gemma in her paper gown, Louis and Harry on either side of the examination table, holding each other, crying and laughing, the little black and white picture wrinkled from Harry gripping it so tightly. It was everything they hoped for.

Until it wasn’t. A month after that first ultrasound, the baby was gone. 

Today was an anniversary of sorts; exactly one year to the day since the positive pregnancy test, which meant it was ten months since the miscarriage, six months since they started the adoption process, four months since he cut his hair short, three and a half months since Louis begged him to do something, anything with his grief, and three months since he decided to go to therapy and try meditating. 

One day he hopes to measure time in minutes and hours or days that are completely unrelated to the last year of his life. 

When Harry’s alarm goes off, he slips silently out of bed, pulls on his swim trunks, slides his feet into his sandals, and walks to the beach in the dim first light of the morning. The sense of weightlessness is what keeps him coming back, not the meditation, not the water, not the hour he allows himself to grieve, but the feeling that for the thirty to forty minutes that he’s suspended in the ocean, the heaviness in his heart subsides and he’s lighter. 

After the miscarriage, they decided not to try surrogacy again. Gemma was a mess, they all were, but somehow Harry kept it together those first few days. He was strong for his sister, an anchor for his husband, but he was so caught up in taking care of them that he neglected to look after himself. A year later and he’s just beginning to.

The steam from his shower clouds the bathroom. He washes and shaves, and as he brushes his teeth, he realizes that this time the lightness has stayed with him. He’s carried it all the way from the ocean to his house without noticing, but it’s there.

In the kitchen, he pours a cup of coffee, then takes it out to the front porch where Louis is sitting on the swing and sits down beside him, slides close enough so their thighs touch and rests his head on Louis’ shoulder.

Louis drops his hand to harry’s knee and lightly squeezes. “Hi. You okay?”

From the way his head is lying on Louis’ shoulder, his nod sort of shakes them both, and so that they don’t spill their coffee, he sits up and says, “Yeah. I think so. Think it’s helping actually.”

Louis nods. “I expected today to be difficult. And I think October will be too. But we’re getting there.”

“I know. We are. I’m sorry. I… I feel like I’m always apologizing and then correcting myself because I’m not supposed to.”

“You can apologize all you want, Harry, it doesn’t mean you did anything wrong though. I think we’re both sorry about the whole thing. It’s been a shit year.”

“I’m just tired, I guess. That support group that we went to was… I don’t know. Like, I understand that what we’ve gone through is different than most of those couples, but also almost every single one of them said the same thing.”

“Well, unless there’s some new science out there, neither of us is getting pregnant anytime soon.”

Harry huffs a little laugh through his nose. “No.”

“It’ll happen for us, Harry. We’ll have a baby.”

\----

When October arrives, it brings with it lower temperatures, and an unwillingness on Harry’s part to submerge his body in the cold ocean. He tries twice after the first cold snap and lasts only a few minutes the first time, but barely wades out past his knees the second time. After that, he practices his meditation sitting in the sand. 

It’s the anniversary of the miscarriage and Harry doesn’t want to go to the beach when he wakes up that morning. It’s a Saturday, and he and Louis spent the previous evening drinking wine and sitting on their porch swing wrapped together in a blanket, talking, but not about anything of importance. They fell into bed together, though it was Harry who initiated it; sex between them became something completely different over the past year, and while the passion and fire were still there, another element was added and the release was more emotional than physical at times. When it was over, they cleaned each other up, and lay down in their usual manner, Harry curled on his side, Louis draped over his back, face buried in his short curls.

Which is where they still are, warm, covered in a thick, fluffy comforter, skin damp with sleep sweat, and Harry is arguing with himself about getting up and going to the beach. He’s supposed to, is the thing. It’s making him better. Every day that he sits, he feels lighter. Every morning as he watches the sunrise, he feels less empty. And it’s not as if the emptiness is being filled with something else, or disappearing, because it’s not. It’s just less. But he doesn’t want to leave the bed, where his husband lies plastered to his back, where he can still feel a slight twinge from the night before. Their hands are clasped in front of his chest, so he rubs his thumb against Louis’ and squeezes their fingers together in a quiet attempt to wake him. When he starts to snuffle and Harry can tell he’s awake even though he’s lying still and could easily fall back asleep, he asks him to come to the beach with him. It’s the first time he’s offering and it’s obviously a _big deal_. Louis nods against Harry’s shoulder blade, places a quick kiss there, and squeezes his hand back.

First light is just before seven o’clock, so they drive to the beach in the dark with Louis behind the wheel and Harry’s hand stretched across the center console, resting on his thigh. 

Soft, pink light breaks over the ocean and dry, cold sand, sifts between their toes as Louis follows Harry to his usual spot on the beach. It’s cool and damp out, unusually humid for November, and when a gust of wind comes off the ocean, it catches the hood of Harry’s sweatshirt and inflates it with salt air, swirling around his head and blowing a curl across his forehead. 

In silence, they sit together and watch the sunrise over the ocean.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. If you'd like, you can reblog [this Tumblr post.](http://kingsofeverything.tumblr.com/post/173589688620/alluvion-by-fullonlarrie-alluvion-%C9%99%CB%88lo-ov%C4%93%C9%99n)


End file.
